November 2, 2014

Midterm predictions

My predictions about American election outcomes in the past have been mediocre at best. I don't have the luxury of having the data to do real analytics and come up with some accurate predictions. Instead I've had to rely on my gut, which relies on reading polls (which were clearly misaligned with each other in 2012) and reading a few key pundits to cobble together a coherent sense of what might happen. Maybe someday I'll be able to make the type of prognostications I envision, but that will not happen in 2014.

All that is my way of saying, take my predictions with a grain of salt.

So what do I see happening? In a paragraph, this. In Congress the GOP will pick up about a dozen seats. The GOP will win the senate and end up with 52 seats. As far as the governorships go, I haven't followed them as closely this cycle so I'm truly just spitballing here - I see it being a wash. The GOP may pick up a state but it's equally possible that they lose one.

That's about it. I hope my predictions have understated a possible GOP wave. But having been burned in 2012 by certain polls, I\m hesitant to predict more

Regardless of how the elections turn out, what really matters is what happens afterwards. There are so many questions. How does the liberal media react? How does president Obama react? What do Republicans do to improve and then consolidate their image among atypical demographics for them between 2015 and 2016? What happens legislatively? Who besides Hillary Clinton will step forward to challenge for the GOP and Democrat nominations for president in 2016? There are far more unknowns post-midterm than pre-midterm. Unless of course the predictions I've made are way off base.